Virtually every large electronics company is presently engaged in research in the area of organic electronics. Specific applications include organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) and organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs). Some close to the electronics industry predict that organic microelectronics will displace inorganic microelectronics in the realm of computer and other displays, particularly flat panel displays. The reason cited for this change is that organic microelectronics can utilize flexible and lightweight material, whereas conventional flat panel displays, e.g., liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma displays, typically require relatively heavy and rigid substrates and other components.
Current issues that need to be addressed for widespread commercialization of organic electronics include: (1) low-cost methods to produce thin film materials and (2) methods to produce high-quality materials composed of large crystalline domains. For example, conventional methods of depositing organic semiconductor thin films routinely produce materials that have crystalline domain sizes smaller than 10 microns. Consequently, it would be desirable for many reasons for manufacturers to be able to make high-quality organic films having crystalline domains several orders of magnitude larger than conventionally practicable and even more desirable if manufacturers were able to achieve such large crystalline domain sizes at a low cost.